La Nouvelle Journaliste

2009-08-23T11:21:00.001-07:00

I'm moving to Paris September 10th!!!!

I'll be living on 15 rue St. Dominique in the 7th!

Lazy Little Venice

2009-04-27T03:09:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving : Cephas Avenue

2008-12-02T10:46:00.000-08:00

2008-11-26T11:45:00.000-08:00

It all just hit me tonight. I think I shelved the idea of properly resolving the end of my three year relationship with a guy I had made a home with, not to mention over time weaving bits of my life into his so thoroughly it was more one than two.

My cousin Andy, who I live with in London, said to me about a month ago: your relationship was more like a marriage, and so the end of it will be that much more prolific in your life. I think, since I was the one who ended it, I thought I would seamlessly move into my new flat, into a new life and simply recover from the shock of piecing myself back together, the single me, which I was rather happy and desperate to be for a long time. Instead, I found myself walking home from the tube tonight, three months after it ended, with this weight dragging behind me, reducing me to tears.

Totally unaware of my neighbors walking past me, now sobbing as I reach the steps down to my flat, fumbling with my key to get inside so I can curl my shoulders over and put my face in my hands in the unlit lounge. I went directly up to my room and typed an e-mail. My heart on a page, my apologies, my regrets, my grateful thanks for a man who loved me so well. The tears flowed freely in the privacy of my room, the door shut, the house quiet. How do I make sense of leaving that entire life behind me? Those friends, those places and your family who I love so dearly? It may have been my choice to separate, but I mourn the loss of you in my life as if you took it away from me.

I know I made the right decision to break it off, and still there I sat, entirely and overwhelmingly mourning the end of a relationship I thought I had come to terms with as I put the words on the page. I feel that I left part of me in your hands and it's your part now, something I'll forever be without. I'm sorry that I left, I think to myself, so deeply saddened in the feeling that I abandoned you. Every warm moment we ever made now images in my mind, fresh and painful. It was so good, I think, why did I leave? But I was no longer in love. I knew that I wasn't the right woman for you.

The strange thing is that I am seeing someone new. I have been for about a month now. And before him, I think it was more convenient to shelve the feeling of deep disappointment over the end of my last, and most serious, relationship. But now I know that it is futile to be with anyone so long as I harbor this weight over things left unresolved. In fact, in some way I think my acknowledgement that I still have feelings to work through and things to say to really

Quand je suis rétourné à Londres

2008-10-11T14:54:00.000-07:00

summer : in pictures

2008-10-11T03:55:00.001-07:00

View out my window London

Jason Mraz in blur Cambridge

My lovely cousins Ellen, Katie & I - Bald Head, North CA

Margaritas all round El, Katie, me, Sarah - Bald Head

Old Baldy's view Bald Head, North Carolina

I'll take it. Bald Head, North Carolina

Must have American flag Bald Head, North Carolina

The winding road Bald Head, North Carolina

Going with the flow Drew - San Diego, CA

Taking the plunge Drew on ledge - Sunset Cliffs

Loving it. Pacific Beach

Family love! My older brother Adam & I - Sunset Cliffs

Cupcakes. Jesse & me - Pacific Beach

Pickup the good life! Dad & Chris - The Sands Farm - Newark, Ohio

Green goodness! The Sands Cows - Newark, Ohio

Daddio's childhood hiding spot. The Sands Farm

Newby. The Sands Farm

Can't get enough of it! Joe - The Sands Farm

Back home where it matters. Natalie & I - Bobs. Columbus, Ohio

The new kids on the block.

Brian, Jesse, Gene, me, Jon - Montauk, New York

Looking positive on the metro. Bri, Jon, Jesse, Gene

Manhattan

Brooklyn love! The Guzman family + Jon - Brooklyn, NY

Heterosexuality at it's peak. Jon -Brooklyn, NY

Following the dinner they don't remember eating.

Jesse (with the gang signs), Brian (with the blank stare) & Jon (with the ugly t-shirt)

Held captive. Jon & I waiting for the train - Manhattan

The lovely Mariana! the juice girls in Manhattan

"Are you from the other team?"

Not shown: Haley in a pink dress surrounding by scarlet and gray

Columbus, eating it up. Ohio State Buckeye stadium - Columbus, Ohio

Don't pretend you can take him seriously in these sun glasses.

Mayor of Positive Town - Albany, New York

"How long have you guys been dating?"

Jesse & I avoiding awkward questions .... but smiling .. notice the smiling.

Way past last call in England.

Jon & I - some grotty, sweaty bar (that we loved) - SUNY Albany campus

Metal school. Not shown: spandex. Jesse & me - Pacific Beach

Jenny Morgan the gorgeous & me in Pacific Beach

Love love love. Miss Jenny & me - Pacific Beach

The trek uphill after surfing. Blacks Beach, La Jolla, CA

What's the world to do?

2008-06-27T03:38:00.000-07:00

Today is the runoff election in Zimbabwe following the disastrous poor-sport loss of Robert Mugabe three months ago to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai (Movement for Democratic Change- MDC). Mugabe, leader of the ruling ZANU-PF party since 1980, has now had sufficient time to assure his 'democratic' win by terrorizing the already starving population that was once a promising and abundant country, which is now suffering from 100,000 percent inflation.

CNN reported that "the MDC said a build-up to genocide was evidenced by the arming of militia members and youth supporters of ZANU-PF, Mugabe's threats of war if Tsvangirai were to win the vote, and threats against those who vote for the MDC leader."

Who's in charge here?

Disappearing Allotments

2008-06-27T00:37:00.000-07:00

Where I live, near London Fields in the flourishing East End, everyone and their brother seems to want an allotment. The waiting lists are so long in Hackney that they have now closed the list to new applicants entirely. Some sites in Tower Hamlets have also closed the waiting list and another (closest to my home) are so small they only have two plots. In other boroughs where waiting lists are still open, the council measures the potential waiting time in years - not months.

Each council, according to the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG) "...have to, by law, provide allotments - with the exception of Inner London. So what should Londoners who are desperate to get a bit dirty and grow their own goods do? Get on it, immediately.

Neil Russell-Jones has recently published an allotment guidebook called Your Own Allotment: How to find and manage one - and enjoy growing your own food that provides fantastic advice. He suggests putting your name on as many lists as you possibly can, regardless of the waiting list, as sometimes lists can be inflated if applicants do not remove their name when they receive a plot from another waiting list. He put his name on five lists and received a plot only a few months later. He also advises to take whatever plot you are allocated, even if it is smaller than you would like, as it is easier to request a larger plot 'when you are on the inside looking out' than wait forever for a large plot that may never come.

For those, like myself, who are looking for a plot in either Hackney or Tower Hamlets, the most helpful websites I have found include the following.

Hackney

Tower Hamlets

For now, Hackney City Council has posted this message on it's website:

Booming interest in allotments leads to waiting list freeze

As the waiting list is about to hit 300, the Committee has decided to take the unprecedented step of closing the list.

Recent media interest in allotments has led to a huge number of applications being received by the Society. The decision to close the list has been taken with regret but we simply cannot keep up with this level of demans. We are also concerned that we are continuing to accept membership fees from residents who have little hope of renting an allotment for many years to come.

The Committee plan to review the waiting list following membership renewal in the Autumn. An announcement of the decision will then be put on the website. In the meantime we encourage all those seeking an allotment in Hackney to lobby their local Councillor for more allotment provision in the borough.

Your local Councillor can be found here.

Lobby! Lobby! Lobby!

He's not president yet - but he's got his own shoe

2008-03-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

Sitting on the steps of one of the largest American private schools on the Hawaiian island of Honolulu in 1976, Barry concluded he did not believe he would see a black president of the United States during his lifetime. But more than thirty years later, Barack "Barry" Obama is singing a different tune.

In a student body of 3,600 Obama was one of four black pupils that spring and was enrolled thanks to a financial endowment in the elite, white-majority private school Panahou.

Writing for The Sunday Times Magazine David James Smith revealed the many struggles of the democratic presidential hopeful in his youth. To begin, the story of this wild card candidate is far different than of those past.

As a young teen, Obama struggled to fill the void of an absent father and a somewhat nomadic mother, who supported Obama and his half-sister Maya with food stamps as they were growing up. He also revealed struggles to accept his multicultural background growing up with a father from Kenya and a white American mother from Kansas. Growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia did not help to ground Obama. He wrote in his 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father" that he dabbles in booze, marijuana and "maybe a little blow" so he could "push questions of who I was out of my mind," level "out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory."

As a presidential candidate, Obama is a far cry from standard candidates of the past. George W. Bush's rap sheet read more like the traditional choice. The son of former president George H. W. Bush has had oil money trailing his trousers since his father created Zapata Offshore in 1953 and is Ivy League educated.

But as his approval ratings reached their lowest at 19 percent in February, according to American Research Group, it is safe to say America's loyalty seems to be swaying towards the wild-card candidate and rejecting the standard, monied elitist leader that has traditionally been elected in the past.

After graduating with a BA from Columbia University and law degree from Harvard, Obama married Michelle Robinson in 1992 with whom he has two daughters, Sasha, 7, and Malia, 9. When the pair met in the 1990s, Obama was practicing civil rights law and teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. After which he was elected Illinois state senator in 1997. In 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention and later that year was the first African-American to win a seat in the U.S. Senate as a senator in Illinois. So what is it about this man that has Patrick Wintour of the The Guardian describing his magnetism as 'Obama magic'?

Among the murmurs of American society it is clear that the 2008 presidential election will be positive in and of itself, if only to rid the country of a very unpopular president. One who is seen to have severely damaged foreign relations for the United States, to a degree that some feel is irreparable. The American people want change, and if anyone is the hallmark for that movement it is Barack Obama.

Among the most prominent issues of this election include the American economy and plans for economic stimulus, the Iraq War, health care, immigration and taxes. According to a CNN telephone poll, when asked "what of the following issues will be the most important to you when you decide how to vote for president?" the most important factor with 42 percent was the economy, followed by 21 percent for the war, and 18 percent health care. With the threat of an impending recession CNN outlines OBama's plan to attack the problem, which includes "pumping $75 billion into the economy and in addition $45 billion in reserves that can be injected quickly in the future if the situation continues to deteriorate." Regarding the economy, Obama also intends to take measures to lighten the burden by offering tax relief to the middle class, working Americans. On his website, Obama declared he intends to "restore the fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need."

Ranking most crucial of the issues for some includes potential plans to either remain or pull out of Iraq. Obama's campaign has been rather pristine, but those individuals wary to give him their vote often claim it is because they are concerned how he will fare in mending America's broken foreign image and policies. His plan to immediately begin to remove American troops from Iraw is supported by Obama's opposition to the use of military force in Iraq from the beginning and his vote for a war spending bill that would have withdrawn most U.S. troops by March 2008, according to the website.

Health care reform is the big issues for 47 million Americans who simply do not have any. At a Democratic debate in Cleveland in February Obama laid out his plan to create a national health insurance program for those who do not have employer-provided health care. This national health insurance program would require those employers who do not provide their employees with health care to pay into the scheme. According to CNN's election center, it will also be funded by eliminating Bush tax cuts for those earning over $250,000. Regarding health care, Obama made the remark at another debate in February saying, "we can't do anything at home with $12 billion a month in Iraq."

It is also important to consider how Obama will potentially be received internationally if he is elected president. There is talk that relations between Obama and Gordon Brown are strained. Tom Baldwin, reporting for Washington for The Times said, "Gordon brown is frantically trying to forge links with Barack Obama, having previously turned down the chance of a high-profile meeting with the US presidential contender at Downing Street last summer. The Times understands there are concerns at the highest level in Whitehall that Britain does not have the relationship that it wants with Mr. Obama."

Baldwin reported that "Mr. Brown was worried about being seen to help Mr. Obama at a time when Mrs. Clinton appeared to be likely- even inevitable- nominee." Much to Whitehall's dismay, "it has been noted that President Sarkozy of France - who has already made inroads into Britain's traditional role as America's most prominent European ally - offered Mr. Obama an official welcome at the Élysée Palace."

While Baldwin noted that "Mr. Obama is said to be "relaxed" about Mr. Brown's apparent lack of enthusiasm last summer" it is something that will inevitably be on the radar of those trying to interpret whether Obama will be a success internationally, and especially with America's most important allies.

As I have watched his campaign with anticipation since he announced his candidacy in 2007 I stand convinced that is Obama has one quality working in his favour, it is his ability to remind Americans that they are all in this together. In an article written for The Independent, Cass. R. Sunstein, a colleague of Obama's for 15 years wrote "as president, Barack Obama would be a genuine uniter. If he proves able to achieve great things, for this national and for the world, it will be above all for that reason."